Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#121

Post by John23832 » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

aliqot wrote: post #112

John23832 wrote: post #90

(Black man here) Two things can be true at once. I have built great things. I can stand on my own. My merits are great. I do not want to be the token employee that is trotted around for Diversity Points (tm). I do not like the diversity porn that a lot of these DEI groups get off on. That being said, I do recognize that I have benefited from these groups (at least at their most genuine). There are groups that are aim…

Growing up on IRC, I have very much the same experience as you but quite opposite as I experienced hardly any racism, and nobody knew my identity either. Nobody wanted to involve their personal lives or details until recently when identity and identifying became the thing.

It's not about telling people your ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, it's about WHAT IS SAID about your ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.

The beauty of the internet is anonymity (to a certain extent), but that doesn't mean that you can't see or hear things that exclude you.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#122

Post by dbrueck » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

I'm so sorry that this is your experience, and I'm sorry that you're being used. This is one of the unfortunate outcomes of so many DEI initiatives - or at least every single one I've seen directly or heard about secondhand. It's wrong that they use you this way and, worse, by doing so they are effectively putting a little asterisk next to every one of your accomplishments, which is of course deeply unfair to you, but also to everyone around you.

Hopefully not many DEI efforts are insincere from the outset (i.e. driven by a desire to not look bad), but it certainly seems that DEI efforts are cheapened by their publicity. Keeping them private might be an improvement, but human diversity has so many dimensions to it, and the fixation on relatively superficial things like skin color is largely unhelpful if the goal is actual diversity of things like ideas, perspective, and experience (as opposed to the goal of appearing diverse).

I don't know how to reverse the damage of past eras of things like racism and sexism, but diversity hiring does a lot of harm (and, at the end of the day, is really just more racism and more sexism anyway).

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#123

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

> "Why should I feel proud of my accomplishments, when the accomplishments were spoon-fed to me by the company because of my skin color?"

Because they're still your accomplishments. White people hardly ever ask if they should be proud of their accomplishments when they live in a society that assumes they should and will succeed.

> "If I were a white man with the same experience, I might not even be here?"

If you were a black man with the same experience, you also might not even be there. Many aren't. Statistically, most aren't (in the sense that relative to the population, black men are still extremely under-represented in tech).

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#124

Post by catiopatio » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

trenchgun wrote: post #109

John23832 wrote: post #90

(Black man here) Two things can be true at once. I have built great things. I can stand on my own. My merits are great. I do not want to be the token employee that is trotted around for Diversity Points (tm). I do not like the diversity porn that a lot of these DEI groups get off on. That being said, I do recognize that I have benefited from these groups (at least at their most genuine). There are groups that are aim…

> Prior to this, in the earlier internet age, you had to cut your teeth on IRC and forums. That was where technical people were in the computer tech space. > Do you know VIRULENTLY anti-black (or woman, or gay) these communities were? I can't begin to describe it. That is totally off-putting to someone who has the ability succeed but does not want to deal with the hate. Wow, thank you. Gives me a new perspective.

He’s completely, totally, and absolutely incorrect.

I spent decades on IRC starting in the early 90s, and this is a politically-driven contemporary re-imagination of what existed at the time.

We were open to all because we ourselves didn’t fit in elsewhere.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#125

Post by px43 » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

Unconscious bias is really really hard to get past in job interviews. People have this weird instinct where they want to work with the kinds of people that they've worked with in the past. A well implemented DEI program nudges the scales towards selection of candidates who are best for the role, rather than who are most similar to the interviewers. Implementing an effective DEI program is hard.

The other side of that is also true. Candidates want to work for teams that include the kinds of people that they have worked with in the past. Because of this, having visible diversity in your teams is more likely to attract a wider candidate pool, which means more chances to hire good people.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#126

Post by zozbot234 » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 3:00 PM UTC

John23832 wrote: post #90

(Black man here) Two things can be true at once. I have built great things. I can stand on my own. My merits are great. I do not want to be the token employee that is trotted around for Diversity Points (tm). I do not like the diversity porn that a lot of these DEI groups get off on. That being said, I do recognize that I have benefited from these groups (at least at their most genuine). There are groups that are aim…

Is it any better when supposedly "tech" focused communities are virulently anti-white, anti-male or anti-Asian? These things have no place in genuine professional discourse.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#127

Post by DebtDeflation » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 3:00 PM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #88

giantg2 wrote: post #8

"...it would be beneficial if DEI initiatives were confidential and kept "hush hush" within a company." "...is nothing short of corporate virtue signaling." It might be most beneficial for individuals if it's kept-low key. It's best for the company to scream it to the world. Or at least that's what the leaders think right now. Personally, I think any medium to large company that talks about DEI and isn't addressing t…

> It's best for the company to scream it to the world. Or at least that's what the leaders think right now. After sitting in a room where we were told we needed to increase our “minority representation in upper management” (and I’m a mostly white manager). There were already 20% apparently, they wanted 40%. I asked my boss, “so what does that mean to me? To me it seems like you don’t want me” Boss: “oh no, you’re fin…

Unfortunately, I had an even worse experience.

Boss: "You need to build a more diverse team."

Me: "What are you talking about? I'm 1 of only 2 white people on the entire 12 person team."

Boss: "Indians and Asians don't count as diverse."

Me: "Really? I did not know that. I do have 2 Hispanics on the team though."

Boss: "You're not hearing me. You don't have any black people and only have 2 women."

It became clear that "diversity" was not the goal, but rather something much more specific, likely because the metric the company was tracking specified it that way.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#128

Post by debacle » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 3:00 PM UTC

My first introduction to the DEI movement was in college, reading "None of This is Fair," which at the time reflected on the DEI initiatives on the 2000s poorly.

Since then we've considerably doubled down on the things Rodriguez was critical of over 20 years ago.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#129

Post by backzerman » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 3:00 PM UTC

I'm seeing a lot of claims here that DEI initiatives are about actively hiring under-qualified under-represented candidates to change the demographics of the company. I've sat through a lot of DEI sessions at work (as have many of my friends), and I've yet to hear of anyone actually _hiring_ under-qualified candidates for the sake of a quota.

The DEI sessions I've sat through have focused heavily on the I--inclusion. Sure, they were corny, and there was plenty of virtue-signalling. But making a conscious effort to make sure everyone at the company feels socially welcome and fairly treated is a worthwhile effort.

Re: Tell HN: DEI initiatives undermine the self esteem of PoC within a company

#130

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Feb 06, 2023, 3:00 PM UTC

John23832 wrote: post #121

aliqot wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing up on IRC, I have very much the same experience as you but quite opposite as I experienced hardly any racism, and nobody knew my identity either. Nobody wanted to involve their personal lives or details until recently when identity and identifying became the thing.

It's not about telling people your ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, it's about WHAT IS SAID about your ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. The beauty of the internet is anonymity (to a certain extent), but that doesn't mean that you can't see or hear things that exclude you.

Exactly. The old saying was "The beauty of the Internet is nobody knows if you're a dog."

... except they didn't mean dog, and we never said why it might matter what you are or what other people were assuming you were absent further information.